Slaves

Justinian explains why the slave lost his liberty:

What was the motive of instituting as heir the slave of another person?

Not only freemen but slaves, whether belonging to the testator or to another person, may be instituted heirs.

, that it did not sufficiently define the persons who might be made slaves.

Slavery, then, being the creature of positive legislation alone, can be created only by legislation that shall so particularly describe the persons to be made slaves, that they may be distinguished from all others.

* * * The state of slavery is of such a nature, that it is incapable of being introduced on any reasons, moral or political—but only positive law, which preserves its force long after the reasons, occasion, and time itself from whence it was created, is erased from the memory.

and which the Romans, in many respects barbarous, and whose savage virtue has been too much admired, reserved for the slaves alone.

These truths were known to the Roman legislators, amongst whom, as I have already observed, slaves, only, who were not considered as citizens, were tortured.

If it be an association of families, there will be twenty thousand men, and eighty thousand slaves;

Are you trying to raise a discussion about slaves, Critobulus?

And slaves need the stimulus of good hopes no less, nay, even more than free men, to make them steadfast.

What art is dearer to servants, or pleasanter to a wife, or more delightful to children, or more agreeable to friends?

again, the same lawgiver said, A slave shall not be the lover of a free boy nor follow after him, or else he shall receive fifty blows of the public lash.

your fathers, when they were laying down laws to regulate the habits of men and those acts that inevitably flow from human nature, forbade slaves to do those things which they thought ought to be done by free men.

and he offered the defence the opportunity of examining his slaves under torture;

The audience had also included slaves, namely, himself, his brother, the fluteplayer Hicesius, and Meletus’ slave.

I supported this account by handing over my slave for torture, to prove that I was ill at the time in question and had not even left my bed;

As to the slaves, if he considered that they were answering his questions truthfully, well and good;

You do not need to be reminded, gentlemen, that the one occasion when compulsion is as absolute and as effective as is humanly possible, and when the rights of a case are ascertained thereby most surely and most certainly, arises when there is an abundance of witnesses, both slave and free, and it is possible to put pressure upon the free men by exacting an oath or word of honor, the most solemn a …

(v) Also anybody can enjoy the pleasures of the body, a slave no less than the noblest of mankind;

These slaves the defendant took to himself, together with all the other things given to us as surety with them.

But the house and the fourteen slaves and the thirty minae which you gave over into my hands, could not have been assessed at any such sum as that which you agreed to pay to the tax-group.

For two years he conducted the business of the factory and paid to Therippides the hire of the slaves, but to me, though he took the profits for two years, amounting to thirty minae, he has turned over neither that sum nor the interest upon it.

When my bearers got to my door, my mother and the women servants began shrieking and wailing, and it was with difficulty that I was at length carried to a bath.

No one of you would have been seized with a fit of laughter, if he had happened to be present when I was dragged and stripped and maltreated, when I was borne home on a litter to the house which I had left strong and well, and my mother rushed out, and the women set up such a wailing and screaming (as if someone had died in the house) that some of the neighbors sent to inquire what it was that had happened.

Athenians, you hear the humanity of the law, which does not permit even slaves to be assaulted.

to Apollo the Averter sacrifice an ox and wear garlands, both free men and slaves, and observe one day of rest;

Indeed he went to such extreme lengths that even if a slave was assaulted, he granted him the same right of bringing a public action.

Other slaves one may see called to strict account by their masters, but here we see the very opposite:

Do not take into consideration that they are severally Syrus or Manes or what not, while this fellow is Phormio.

Then why, you unparalleled scoundrels, instead of confiscating estates and houses, and putting them on the schedule, did you imprison and maltreat men who were full citizens, as well as those unhappy aliens, whom you treated more outrageously than your own domestic slaves?

If, gentlemen of the jury, you will turn over in your minds the question what is the difference between being a slave and being a free man, you will find that the biggest difference is that the body of a slave is made responsible for all his misdeeds, whereas corporal punishment is the last penalty to inflict on a free man.

for they knew well that, if they told any such lie as this, they would at once be convicted by the slaves when these were put to the torture.

He was similarly liable for the torts of his slaves;

Much industry and much learning have been bestowed in the United States of America on the question whether the Slave was in the early stages of society a recognised member of the Family.

There seems to be something in the institution of Slavery which has at all times either shocked or perplexed mankind, however little habituated to reflection, and however slightly advanced in the cultivation of its moral instincts.

Mark the days which come from Zeus, duly telling your slaves of them, and that the thirtieth day of the month is best for one to look over the work and to deal out supplies.

Do not even among the nations the strictest masters, those most tenacious of discipline, forbid their slaves to marry abroad — that is, lest they break out into wantonness, desert their duties, betray their masters' affairs to strangers?

Slaves are permitted to flee to the statue of a god for refuge;

A motion was once made in the senate that slaves should be distinguished from free men by their dress;

Just as cruel masters are pointed out throughout the whole city and are hateful and detestable, so the wrong of kings extends more widely, and their infamy and odium are handed down to the ages;

So you will find a slave who would rather be flogged than cuffed, and who thinks death and stripes more bearable than insulting words.

The same reason explains why the impertinence of our slaves, insolent toward their masters, delights us—a boldness which only then makes free with the guests if it has begun with the master;

when in every seventh year slaves are loosed into liberty;

Slavery is still a natural and beneficent industrial system among some peoples;

When slave-owners invest their slaves in an adventure, their share of the profits or losses (i.

In the days of slavery it would have been quite as accurate to say that the natural relation between master and workman was one of coercion.

Please observe also that among all the directions I am now giving you, I give no orders to slaves.